


Do What You Will

by LadyKes



Category: Lewis (TV), Spooks | MI-5
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-16 16:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1353322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKes/pseuds/LadyKes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An  unexpected invitation from an old mate allows James to consider his choices.  No spoilers for Spooks or Lewis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do What You Will

**Author's Note:**

> What happens when you watch _Spooks_ and "The Gift of Promise" in relatively rapid succession? This, apparently.

Normal days never stayed that way. It was almost a tenet of the universe, or at least a tenet of police work. He and Lewis had been investigating a straightforward murder for a few days now. Sometimes he hated that any murder was considered straightforward, even normal, but it was the life he’d chosen. It was generally better than some of the other lives he’d thought about choosing. 

He’d been out interviewing witnesses, parties of interest, and parties of disinterest all morning, which was still normal. He'd just got back to the nick with a coffee and a slightly stale sandwich (also still normal) when his mobile went. 

“Detective Sergeant Hathaway,” he answered crisply.

“Gabriel,” the vaguely Northern-accented voice on the other end said. That wasn't normal. It was a voice and a name he hadn’t heard in a long time and hadn’t expected to ever hear again. He dropped the sandwich on his desk a little too abruptly, which made Lewis glance up.

“Yes, that’s right,” he said as if his identity was being confirmed, which in a way it was.

“Can you meet me tonight at the Lamb & Flag? Nineteen hundred?” the voice said, and it might have sounded a bit unsure, which wasn’t something he’d heard in it before.

“Yes, thank you,” he said officially, and the caller rang off.

“Who was that?” Lewis asked curiously, and he paused. He couldn’t lie to Lewis. Lying to Lewis went very badly every time he did it. He wasn’t sure what the truth was, though, so he couldn’t say that either.

“Someone that might have some information for me,” he said casually, and Lewis seemed to accept that. It wasn’t unusual for someone to call to warn them that information was on its way and then send the information another way. 

The afternoon passed uneventfully, but he did make sure to leave the station in time to get to the Lamb & Flag. It wasn’t one of his usuals, but it wasn’t a bad pub either. There was a nice literary connection and the pints tended to be well-pulled. When he walked in, he scanned the crowd but didn’t see anyone familiar, although honestly given how long it had been since he’d seen the man he was meeting, he wasn’t sure he’d recognize him anyway. He chose a table and went to the bar to get in a pint. His potential companion would show or not, and if he didn’t, James would just have a pint.

When he returned to his table, a man was sitting there. He was pale with black hair, a nose that could be called strong if one was being kind, an angular jaw, and clear blue eyes that had been his weakness in training. They had always showed his thoughts. Now they showed nothing. James dropped down in the seat opposite and it didn’t escape him that his companion had taken the one with the best view of the exits. Of course he had.

“Gabriel,” the man said, and James shook his head. 

“Just James now,” he corrected his companion, who’d once gone by the code name Azrael. It had suited their trainer’s sense of humour to call the light-haired one Gabriel and the dark-haired one Azrael. Given James’ background, it had amused him enough to allow it. 

“Can I buy you a pint? “ he offered Azrael, but the man shook his head.

“We’re in a pub, Azrael,” he pointed out. “Not drinking anything looks a bit conspicuous, and you remember what they said about that.”

Azrael smiled slightly and then nodded, so James got up again and got him a pint. He wasn’t sure Azrael’s tastes were the same as they’d once been, but he probably wouldn’t be drinking it anyway, so it didn’t matter.

When he returned, he slid the pint in front of his companion and lifted his own. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” Azrael echoed, and appeared to sip from his pint. James noticed a pattern of five dots on the inside of his left wrist, which was something he generally only saw on people who’d been in prison. The tattoo was fuzzy-looking too, as if the artist hadn’t had the right kind of needle. 

“Not that you’re likely to tell me the truth,” James said directly after a real sip, “but why are you here, Azrael? We don’t run in the same circles anymore.”

“A truth that’s told with bad intent,” Azrael started, and James finished the line for him, “beats all the lies you can invent.”

“Still a fan of Blake, then,” James said, smiling at a man who’d known him very well once, and whom he’d thought he’d known very well in return. They’d had Blake-quoting contests during very boring training sessions. It might have been one of the things that had started him on his habit of quoting things at Lewis. It’d certainly been one of the things that had started him on hating bad institutional coffee.

“Some things don’t change,” Azrael agreed, and appeared to sip from his pint again. 

“I’m going to ask the question again,” James said patiently, as if he were dealing with a witness who didn’t want to talk. In some ways, he was. “Why are you here, Azrael?”

Azrael seemed to appreciate that James hadn’t yet called him by the name he’d known when they were in training. James didn’t plan to, either. Just because information was known didn’t mean it ought to be used.

“I’ve been away,” Azrael said calmly and quietly. “I missed some of the people I knew before.”

“You’re taking a risk,” James pointed out equally calmly. The entire conversation was happening at a volume and tone that wouldn’t raise eyebrows. “If anyone found out you were here and it wasn’t with their authorisation, you’d be on nosy grandmum detail forever.”

There was a subset of little old ladies who were convinced that all their neighbors were suspect and tended to call in tips to that effect. Occasionally they were right, so the tips had to at least be documented, but no one liked the duty. 

“I would, “ Azrael admitted, “Except that I’ve also got a proposition for you. There have been some incidents. We could use you.”

James raised an eyebrow. “I left. I signed all the papers they asked me to sign. I went through two pens. I renounced everything about it.”

“I know,” Azrael said, with a twitch of his mouth that might have been half a smile. “And they’re still a little unhappy about that, too. You had a lot of potential.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m happy with my life here. I’m not going back to that,” James said firmly. 

“‘Prudence is a rich, ugly, old maid courted by incapacity’,” Azrael challenged him, but James shook his head.

“It’s not prudence or incapacity. ‘Truth is the standard of itself and of error’,” James said. “There’s no truth in your world and I can’t live in the liminal spaces forever.”

Azrael nodded only once, but James had a feeling whatever his once-friend had been through, he understood the Spinoza quote better than James ever did or ever would. 

“If you ever change your mind,” he said, and trailed off. 

“I won’t,” James said, and knew that it was the truth, the standard of itself and of error. He wasn’t going back to that world. He didn’t even know why he’d thought it was a good idea to enter it in the first place now, although part of it was surely vanity and ego. Who didn’t like thinking that they were important enough for the security services to notice them, especially at that age? 

“Then we’re just two friends enjoying a pint,” Azrael acquiesced, and James looked at him closely. That had been too easy in some ways, but he still felt like Azrael meant it. Perhaps it hadn’t been Azrael’s idea for James to be dragged back. Probably it wasn’t. They’d had a long talk before James had signed the final papers and he’d always felt that Azrael knew exactly why James had made the choice he did, maybe even that Azrael had wanted to make the same choice but somehow couldn’t. 

“Is there anything you can tell me about your life?” James asked neutrally, and Azrael huffed a humorless chuckle.

“I live in London,” he offered, and James rolled his eyes. That wasn’t what he’d meant. “Eat fish and chips at least once a week. Couldn’t have them for awhile and now I can’t shake the craving.”

“Anything to do with that?” James dared to ask, gesturing vaguely with his pint in the direction of the five dots on Azrael’s wrist.

“Something to do with it,” Azrael agreed, and appeared to take a sip of his pint. It was an approximate ratio of five fake sips to one real sip. 

“I won’t ask,” James promised, and Azrael nodded in thanks. 

The rest of the evening was spent talking about nothing personal, but it was pleasant all the same. He and Azrael had been good friends for a reason. When Azrael had to leave to catch the last train back to London, James went with him to the station.

They’d never been the kind of friends that hugged and they still weren’t, but Azrael’s handshake was firm and accompanied by a hand on the outside of James’ forearm.

“Take care of yourself, Azrael,” he told his friend seriously, knowing that it was probably the last time he’d ever see the man. 

“And you, James,” Azrael responded, and then raised an amused eyebrow. “And tell your governor that he’s not nearly as good at covert operations as he might want to be.”

James started, then laughed and turned around to see Lewis skulking in the shadows. When he turned back to Azrael, the man was gone. He’d always been annoyingly good at that.

“Sir,” James said, walking over to his governor.

“You alright, James?” Lewis asked, instead of asking what James was doing at Oxford Station with a strange man at midnight when he had to be at work the next morning.

“Very well, sir, thank you,” James said. 

“You want to tell me what that was about?” Lewis asked neutrally. Someday James knew he would, but probably not tonight. 

“‘Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night’,” James said, and Lewis rolled his eyes.

“Alright, do as you like. Just as long as you’re fine,” he said. 

“I am, sir,” James assured him again, and he meant it. Seeing Azrael had done nothing but confirm that this life was the better life for him. Lewis was the better boss for him. 

Azrael could live in the liminal spaces of the world. James would stick to being a simple Oxfordshire copper.

**Author's Note:**

> All of the quotes are by William Blake other than the one specifically called out as being by Spinoza. The title is also from Blake.


End file.
